


Foxes and Running

by redteekal



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29675841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redteekal/pseuds/redteekal
Summary: A/N - I just started typing this out on my phone. I liked the idea of thinking about what traits were passed on. G rated, set in my imaginary season 9, about 8 months after S8 finale, where Mulder doesn't leave and there's no adoption.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	Foxes and Running

Scully never knew this but Mulder was blessed with great powers of focus and concentration from the time he was a small boy. But with these great powers came the great need for action. He'd sit cross legged on his bedroom floor, books scattered around him. He wanted to know more about the freemasons after his teacher had mentioned them in his history class, had stopped by the library and filled his bag with books. He'd read and absorb for hours. Skimming, scanning and investigating. His fingers tapping ceaselessly against his leg or his knee jiggling to an endless soundless beat. A few hours and then he'd uncoil like a tightly wound spring. Bouncing up to his feet, grabbing a basketball, bouncing it rapidfire and noisily heading out the back door to play a solo pick up game. His brain feeling over stimulated, his muscles screaming to do, to act, to work off this backlog of inertia stored up. Sometimes instead of basketball he would change into his Adidas trainers and just run. Through suburbia, down the local park, along the shoreline. He would even hit the local high school track, the long oval shaped artificial surface letting him zone out whilst his body did all the work, his brain would whirl with all he'd just learned and read.

His Mom had realised very soon after her son had figured out how to walk at 10 months of age that Fox was as swift as his namesake. She had a new found respect for the cautionary superstitious tale around being careful in choosing a name, for you may get what you name. Fox was a runner. From the moment he could toddle his way across the floor he started going faster. Almost like he'd decided that the faster he went the less chance he had of losing his balance and toppling over. It was an approach that had worked for him all through his life. And much to his mother's distress and his father's proud amusement, Fox went very fast. The question of how fast can you run was now an obligatory deal breaker question for any future Nannies employed by the Mulders. 

Sure as he grew taller and taller he was looking more and more like a basketballer but what he didn't reveal to Scully was that he was also a sprinter. A track athlete with varsity potential in running. Oh she knew he loved to run and that he always seemed able to keep a pretty consistent high pace over long distances. She enjoyed it when she felt like running, enjoyed the fact that he'd push her in this way, the same way he enjoyed being pushed to be a better marksman by her brilliance with a gun. She's seen him take off in hot pursuit enough times to know he was certainly quick, she just didn't know quite how much running was so deeply embedded into his DNA, how it was his go to coping mechanism, a vital outlet, just an innate instinct he was powerless to ignore. 

So when William, at 8 months old, decided to grab hold of his mother's trouser covered leg, pull himself up and take his first steps across the kitchen floor to the fridge, Scully was beaming with a mother's pride in her son's development. Five seconds later she was having heart palpitations as having reached the fridge, William turned himself around on his little sturdy legs, spotted the lights from Mulder's fishtank and took off running like he was competing in the finals for the 100m Olympics. 

By the time Mulder walked in the door from work that night Scully had nearly finished an entire bottle of wine, her hair in a disheveled mess around her face, reflecting the chaos of the tableau presented to him. She was sitting, barefooted in track pants on the floor, against the couch, every one of her baby books spread out around her, several open at various chapters on the developmental stages of baby mobility. Her laptop was open on the coffee table next to her wine glass and her glasses were perched precariously on the end of her nose, accompanied by a faintly wild eyed look in her eyes as she clicked through what looked to Mulder to be about five hundred tabs open on her browser. 

"Uh..Scully?" 

"Mulder... Where have you been?" 

He looked faintly puzzled... He wasn't that late. 

"At work. I sent a text saying I might be back later."

Scully had been frowning but then rummaged for her phone, hidden under one of the books. She stared down at it. 

"I mustn't have heard the notification..." Her voice trailed off as she considered this. Then she suddenly tilted her face back up to him as she just realised why. Mulder unconsciously took a step back, her expression a little too laser focused on him. 

"Your son Mulder...YOUR son has...has... He's given me... Have you any idea, I have aged about a decade today because of William! He's walking!" 

This was not what Mulder was expecting. The use of the pronoun making him wary. But not enough to quash the instant delight this revelation about his boy brought on. 

"Walking? Actual walking walking? Why didn't you call? Did you get video? Photos?" 

The grin on Mulder's face was ear to ear. He reached for her phone and she snatched it away and glared at him. 

"There's no photos Mulder... No video... No messages..." 

Mulder began to get a little concerned about the increasingly taut, clipped and possibly climbing higher tone he was hearing. Wondered what was with all the developmental baby stages research. He decided he probably shouldn't ask why at this point, felt that Scully was rapidly working towards that answer anyway. Wisely kept his mouth shut, a very attentive, I'm listening expression composed on his face. 

"No sooner had our son taken his very first, surprisingly confident, steps across our kitchen floor then he decided running was the best way to go!" 

Scully's eyebrows were at their highest status currently and her hands were running through her hair like she was getting ready to bolt herself. 

"Our baby boy is running Mulder....he is running..everywhere" 

Mulder was trying very hard to tamper his absolute joy and pride at hearing this, lest Scully think he didn't fully grasp and appreciate the kind of day she'd clearly had chasing after William and his zeal for his new found freedom. She collapsed onto the couch in front of him, head in her hands, clearly still haunted by the recollection of the multiple near misses and heart attacks their son had given her with his newly revealed gift for mobility. He sat next to her and wrapped his arms around her, kissed her hair covered temple and murmured,

"Did I ever tell you the story of how my Mom's hair went grey when I was around 10 months old?"


End file.
